I don't keep an eye on this thread much but I do find it odd that there are as many people who had bad experieriences with BMW GS as those who did not. Same with the Guzzi NTX. Also odd is the perception of handling and performance, My experience has been better with the GS than the NTX but plenty of others seem to find the NTX better. In fact, I have come to the opinion that the Stelvio NTX is the absolute wosrt bike I have ever owned. That says something coming from a guy who has owned 7 different Buells since 1994. Shall I elaborate?

I think the Stelvio NTX looks rather nice and had features I was desiring all for a great price. I wanted the 8.5 gallon tank and 300 mile range. I wanted the aluminum cases. I wanted to be able to go off road to some degree and haul lots of gear. It had plenty of elecrical power, great lighting and came standard with crash protection, skid plate, centerstand and an adjustable windshield. I also wanted to go back to a big lumpy twin that was easy to work on and had good low down grunt. All the boxes were ticked. On paper.

1. The reality is that from day one, it shook worse than any big inch Harley I've ever owned...Buells too. It ran incredibly hot. Hotter than any modded Buell with the pipes next to my right leg as well as the Yamaha based flat tracker I built with the high pipe by my thigh. The TBs went out of synch too easily and on the road where no dealer is available, I had no means to reset the TPS and although HD uses the same hand held computer, the software is different. Power delivery was as I expected and desired. I just hated the heat output and the 5 gallon paint shaker. A very poorly balanced engine.

2. The tranny is clunkier than any Buell, HD and BMW I've owned. I had a number of incidents where the bike slipped out of gear into neutral. The swingarm geometry seemed to squat much more under power than the GS.

3. Suspension: I absolutely hated the separate function forks. It could not keep up with high speed movements. More on this later as there was a catastrophe that I believe is the fault of the SFF. The rear shock seemed to adequate and had good range of adjustment. However, I never got the damping to ever feel "controlled" in their movement.

4. Cockpit. Ergos were pretty good seated and standing. Standing, I was positioned for good gripping of the tank with the knees. Controls, hand and feet were easy to use. The windshield was the worst I've ever experienced. Up or down, seat high or low, I had the worst buffeting ever. I might as well have been in a tornado. The noise from the windshield was deafening. With the windshield removed, it was basic wind against the chest but the ergos were such that my arms weren't being pulled from their sockets and the noise was significantly lower. Almost quiet by comparison. I thought the dash was laid out well and the menus were easy to use. I also liked having 2 power ports.

5. Lights: This is the best feature of he bike. Both headlights are always on wether it's high or low beam and the beam is a useful pattern with great throw. The aux lighting really enhanced my wide angle lighting needs.

6. Luggage: The Trax cases suck ass. They are flimsy and the plastic clamshell rims don't mate well. There are rivets poking into the interior everywhere. They do not seal out the weather well at all. My Houston to the Translab trip was pretty wet. I left during a hurricane and ended up in St. Barbe in another hurricane. I dumped out an inch of water out of all cases (sides and top) for 11 days straight. Luckily, I bought the interior bags to keep my clothes and supplies dry. However, all those rivets ended up digging holes through the liners. I lost all 3 pieces of luggage on the Trans-Lab. They just rattled off. In fact the rear rack for the top case simply disconnected from the bike completely. So all 3 pieces were now banged up. The side case got dragged with the bike because of how my camping gear was strapped to the bike and cases. I've ridden in much worse rain with BMW system cases and with the classic Touratech cases. More durable and completely water tight. They never came off either.

7. Wheels...not completely leak proof. I started finding myself down on PSI by about 1 each day. So, over 2 months, I would wait a week to verify this. My rear lost 10 PSI over a week while I was prepping for my trip and it sat in the garage. I aired up every day on the trip.

8. Handling: On the road at legally responsible speeds, it did just fine. Pushing it hard through twisties, The suspenders couldn't handle it and transistioning side to side, braking/accelerating/braking, the bike was like a hobby horse and I never felt confident about available grip. This was never an issue on the 2 BMWs I had. The Telelever/paralever was unflappable, the chassis always felt settled. In fact, I am more confident on the BMW setup than on my Ninja 1000. I can feel what the tire is doing instead of falsely perceiving to feel the tire when all you really get is the sensation of fork dive.

9. Brakes: Adequate. Not stellar. ABS was easy to turn off and on. ABS on, you could really tell your stopping distance was geater beause whe the brakes would release to prevent lockup, you would easily roll another 5 ft before the brake would grab again, This would release about 3 times for each panic braking test. So that's an extra 15 ft.

10. Durability: Well, my tubeless wheels leaked. TBs kept going out of synch. I lost 3 cases from the bike in one afternoon. The rear subframe loosened up and was floppy underneath me. The lower fork castings for the front axle broke in the pinch clamp area. This caused my front wheel to cock sideways into the fork leg, lock up at 80 mph and throw me over the bars and down the Trans-Lab. The bike went over the side.

Now, as an engineer, I do plenty of simulations at work so I had the tools to do one on the front suspension to test my theory that the SFF was to blame. I spent the hundred bucks to ship the forks back home so I could model them. About 10 miles from my house is Tandy Engineering, who specializes in accident investigations, engineering analysis and vehicular behavior analysis. They were tasked with validating my findings and agreed with my report. I have a lawyer who is interested in taking my case to MG but we haven't gone that far yet. We're still going some legwork.

The end result for the Stelvio is a total loss. It appeared that nothing was good any more. Now, I've ridden the 1100GS along the Coronado trail, the Jeep roads in the Mojave and parts of the Grand Canyon and even a full week on part of the Baja 1000 course. It held together fine.

As for me, I broke 2 ribs, heavily fractured a foot that had all the toes cut off 20 years ago, broke the right clavicle in 6 pieces and smacked my head pretty good. I remember everything up to the impact with the ground. Not sure how long I was out.

The Rukka SRO I was wearing did a good job of protecting me but the shouder of the jacket blew out and the interior liner ripped apart. The APS armor in the Rukka worked awesomely. 80 miles an hour of forward flight is a lot to ask of a piece of gear to protect you from. I saved all the APS armor for future use in my next jacket. I just picked up the Armas as a replacement. The RVP Air armr is comes with is undesirable. Yeah, it breathes well but you can feel the edges of the grid like structure of it. I need to find out if the D30 armor is available as some of the armor just isn't shaped the same as my old APS armor.

Do u have pics of the fork failure? Interesting because they are Marzochis (sp?) and very similar to the ones that were on my F800GS. Mine are in at this moment being rebuilt because of failed seals and guides. And my off roading has been minimal.
PMing you.

__________________
I once was lost but now I'm...no wait, I'm still lost.

Sorry about your experience, X1...truly is not a good thing when you can't trust a bike; been there done that and glad you are able to walk away and try something different. Heal well

Not to be contrary and simply to add some balance...23k miles and mine has never been off of the road for a day and never done anything other than what it is asked.

All services done at home save for 10k mile interval TPS/TBS by dealer seems to keep mine happy. I do check the tire pressure regularly...it does lose 2-3 lbs/week. I agree o-ring tubeless really is stupid.

I am not claiming it is the "end all/be all" of bikes, but as long a she keeps behaving mine is a keeper.

Not long ago I bought an aftermarket muffler for my BMW. This was through ebay. It turned out that the 'seller' was actually the factory in Italy, no middle man. They shipped air freight direct from the factory to my house in Virginia in about 4 days, free shipping, no import duties at all. Some folks obviously have this customer service thing figured out. I hope your experience is as satisfying.

The lower fork castings for the front axle broke in the pinch clamp area

Is it possible that they had been over tightened? My dealer cracked one of mine during a tire change and admitted to overtightening and replaced the lower. That was on my 09 and it was a known problem. Since it's repair and 35,000 miles since, they've been perfect.

Sorry about your experience. I couldn't have a more opposite experience than you've had. I even got rear ended and was able to pick the Trax box up off the ground, push out the dent and refasten it to the rack. It's been on ever since. Mine do leak as well though and I'll probably be replacing them with the Micatech V2's at some point because of that.

Good luck with your next bike. I hope it's a better experience for you.

I don't keep an eye on this thread much but I do find it odd that there are as many people who had bad experieriences with BMW GS as those who did not. Same with the Guzzi NTX. Also odd is the perception of handling and performance, My experience has been better with the GS than the NTX but plenty of others seem to find the NTX better. In fact, I have come to the opinion that the Stelvio NTX is the absolute wosrt bike I have ever owned. That says something coming from a guy who has owned 7 different Buells since 1994. Shall I elaborate?

Bob,

Sorry to hear about your experience with the Stelvio, and certainly about your accident. Heal up quickly!

Re. your points, I see many of them are subjective, like "clunky gearbox", "worst windscreen ever", etc. Let's go through them one by one....

1. Total BS unless you had loose engine/frame mounts. I've ridden MANY Harleys and MANY other "big trailies" and this is just nonsense. And FWIW, the vibes go WAY down as you put the miles on this bike.

2. Again, nonsense. Most if not all of the owners other than you rightly claim it's the slickest shifting gearbox of the lot. I owned a BMW R12GS, and THAT was by far the clunkiest gearbox I've ever experienced, and MANY other BMW owners concur.

3. The suspension functions much better than the stock suspension on my GS (mind you I'm talking about the shock itself, NOT the telelever/paralever design!). By 20k relatively easy miles, my GS shocks were shot. I let the new owner deal with it.

4. Windscreen. Totally subjective. You want bad? Try the stock screen on the Ducati MTS12. EVERYONE has their own likes/dislikes about screens. You should have just gotten a different one. Lots to choose from.

5. We agree! Love the lights, liked the lights on my Norge more though.

6. Agreed! They suck. Tip over at a standstill and they're toast. That's why I don't use them offroad. I have Wolfman Expedition dry bags and the little ring adapters to adapt them to the SW Motech mounts. MUCH more durable, completely waterproof, and I already had them as I use them w/ my "real" dirt bike.

7. I have the opposite experience, and you're the first owner I've heard mention that. My BMW GS wheels leaked constantly. Every 2-3 days I was having to add air. This was consistent through 3 sets of tires. My weekly ritual on my GS was to check the oil and air daily, and top each up as needed. It got old quick. So far the NTX wheels/tires have been no different from any other cast-wheeled bike I've owned and only need tending to every 2-3 weeks (and I haven't added a drop of oil ).

8. Adjust the suspension for "spirited" riding and this won't happen. My GS suspension was so soft that even with max preload it would still plow and wallow when pushed hard. The difference with the GS was I couldn't make any other adjustments to it. On the Guzzi, I can. The only solution on the GS was to go to $$$ adjustable shocks.

9. The brakes are at least as good as those on my GS, and certainly better than my Ducati. Not sure what the beef is here, and again, I haven't heard other owners complaining about them.

10. "Lost 3 bags", "subframe loosened up"???? If you're going to treat the big gal like a dirt bike and don't mind the nuts and bolts, I'm not sure what you expected to happen. Sorry, but this sounds like negligence by the operator vs. some fatal flaw with the motorcycle. Any time you go pounding a bike offroad you have to stay on top of the preventative maintenance or suffer the consequences.

Most of your issues seem to be subjective and the failures seem self-inflicted. Breaking the lower fork casting in the pinch area is a well known result of over-torqued pinch bolts. And now you want to sue MG for it. Good luck with that. I'm all for having a discussion about a bike's strengths AND it's weaknesses, but that's not what I see in your post.

I seriously do wish you well, and a speedy recovery. Getting hurt sucks, and we're all thankful your crash wasn't fatal, which it certainly could have been. But coming on here and bashing the Stelvio like you have isn't going to get you anywhere. You own (or owned?) one of the best model GS's ever made. In my experience with my 12GS (and MANY other owners share this experience), it is NOT like your old 1100 (or the 1150 that followed it). Those older GS's were the real deal and while they had some issues, overall they were damn well built and rugged as hell. The newer ones, sadly, are not (I hope that changes with the new '13s). Best of luck finding your next bike.